You live in, or have to be in (even travel) through one of those areas that is disbanding or defunding or abolishing their police forces – or even just setting up “no-go” zones (a la France, Sweden, and certain cities on this continent)? There is a certain amount of preparation that you might want to take – to be safer and help your family and friends to also be prepared and able to cope. Regardless of your skin color, your ethnic or national background, or how high up the economic food chain you are.

What do you do, with no police around? No, not just not worry about an occasional mistake in your speed or failing to signal.

The objective is of course, is to “survive and thrive” in troubled times. Especially when those times are NOT “emergencies” or “disasters” but just a gradual deterioration in the economy and society. This is NOT a “survivalist” list or to support such a thought process, but intended to help us make it when times are bad, and the support systems we’ve been accustomed to are NOT available. When we have to do for ourselves.

1. Buy a handgun. A good one. With lots of ammo (for training and carrying). And all the accessories – for carrying concealed.
2. Learn how to USE that handgun (and others). Not just “self-defense tactics” and target-shooting. Learn how to use it LEGALLY – how to protect yourself from legal and other problems if (after) you use it.
3. Get and wear a bodycam. Make sure you wear it in a way that it is effective.
4. Get and put a dashcam (or cams) in the vehicles you use: both viewing forward, viewing to the rear, and the inside of the vehicle. And a doorcam or surveillance cameras for your home and workplace, showing avenues of approach and key areas.
5. Get a smartphone and apps that will transmit its photos and videos and sounds as it records them – automatically. With security that someone else can’t easily hack into. (Including using your thumb, attached to your hand or not.)
6. Learn first aid – suggest “frontier” or “wildland” first aid, which is more than “do what you can while someone calls 9-1-1 and you wait for the EMTs.” Get and get familiar with a good first aid kit and smaller kits (including something you can wear on your pistol belt).
7. Ensure that you have basic supplies: food, first aid, medicines, water, consumable supplies (toilet paper! paper towels! etc.) for at least short periods of disruption, to reduce day-to-day dependence on supply chains. Not just at home, but at your workplace and in your vehicle.
8. Study the law – including the changes triggering this – in the State(s) about self-defense, who constitutes a “government official” or “government employee” and what their powers are, and what you must do to preserve your rights. As well as what you can legally do to protect and defend yourself and others.
9. Coordinate with family and friends you can trust, both inside and outside the jurisdiction(s) you anticipate being in. Make sure they can get access to anything (video, sound, images, text) you are uploading. This may include setting up a phone tree or other way of contact when people are NOT in immediate contact.
10. In your home area, or areas you are in frequently, establish a community – in-person, by phone, by email/electronic means, who can share ideas and information and be prepared to help. Neighbors near and far, and people whom you can provide specific kinds of help to, as they provide other kinds to you. (Examples: mechanical, building maintenance, animal (and human) care, and electronics.) A community that can help each other when normal commercial or “public” (governmental) sources cannot be reached or will not come to you because of lawlessness.
11. Always pay careful attention to LOCAL news and weather and even traffic reports – on phone or online – even when you are NOT actually moving – disruptions in traffic, especially in urban areas, are frequently caused by public disturbances, natural disasters, and other crises.
12. In your own home area and areas you are frequently in, establish or link with community emergency response teams (CERT) – whether official or not. Originally designed to support first responders, the CERT are ways to privately organize and provide for support with or without “official” first responders able to come to your assistance.
13. Ensure that you have a clear moral compass – that you, your family, and those you work with, in a CERT or other means (such as perhaps your church) are in agreement on what is right and wrong, and agree on what is wrong that must be challenged and fought against, versus what can be (even reluctantly) tolerated. Think about what you will do to respond BEFORE you are faced with the problem.

While there are certainly many other tasks, these few will help if you live or travel in an area where the police are limited or absent, or where society is fragmenting – if not actually collapsing.